BOSTON - Maria Kadison is introduced as the next president of Edwards & Co., one of the nation's leading brand consultancies to education clients.

For more than a decade, Maria has been working with senior leadership in education. She was vice president for marketing at Simmons College where she lead institutional branding, advancement communications, and admissions marketing for the undergraduate college and five graduate schools.”

When she arrived, Simmons was in a crisis – record low enrollment, declining quality and soaring discount rate. When she left, enrollment in the college was at maximum capacity, with the highest SAT scores in its history, and a discount rate at the national average. Ever since the Simmons turn-around, she has been a highly sought-after consultant for colleges, universities and independent schools across the country. Maria is a smart, thoughtful, experienced strategist, and I know you will benefit from getting to know her."

“This is an exciting time for the company." said the firm's founder Mark Edwards. "The rest of our crew – Peter, Donna, Charlie, Mari, Chris, Renee, Bill, Suzanne, Richard – continues and is thriving. In addition to our central work helping clients identify their core message, we have helped launch several capital campaigns by producing their launch events, developed several “brand books” to replace traditional viewbooks, and expanded our fund-raising communications portfolio.  And with Maria’s leadership, we just launched a new website at www.edwardsco.com.“

“As for me, I will continue on as chairman of the company, and since Maria now handles the day-to-day management, I have leapt into the nonprofit world to start an organization called Opportunity Nation. This is a bipartisan, cross-sector national campaign working to expand economic opportunity and close the opportunity gap in the US. This is an ambitious idea in a politically complicated time, but I’m incredibly excited about giving back in a more substantial way.”

Edwards & Co. is a leading brand consultancy in the education space, working closely with K-12, secondary schools and colleges and universities to help build clarity and consensus around educational brands and, then, drive compelling communications programs that dramatically impact internal communications, enrollment and development efforts. Edwards & Co. has worked with dozens of schools nationwide including Harvard University, Yale, Connecticut College, Bryant University, Deerfield Academy, Choate, Exeter, St. Paul’s, Groton School, Friend’s School, Renbrook and many others.

The Works is a branding and creative talent firm that helps agency and client-side leaders indentify and acquire the talent needed to build great brands, through a mix of executive and contingency search, freelance and contract placement and consulting services. Founded in 1998, the firm has successfully completed more than 500 searches for a roster of clients including Hill Holliday, Mullen, Saatchi, Holland-Mark, Forge Worldwide, PJA, Bluefish, Cone, PAN Communications, Mullen PR, RFBinder, Carat, OTO Interactive, IBM, Courion, Dell EqualLogic, Zipcar, Suffolk Construction and Staples.